^^^ i was talking strictly non-portables should have made that more clear and Pokemon??? Ugh, Havent they been recycling the same thing for the past couple of years?? that was real question, I stopped caring after Gold on Silver on Game Boy , IMHO the Pokemon after the first 250 looked lame, it was like they werent even trying anymore

on home consoles it's a completely different story, WRPGs do rule the roost

Yeah but the dedicated wRPG players are lamenting decline and over simplification in the same way that jRPG lovers do.

Hmm. For me Final Fantasy XIII was the best game of this whole generation. Its storytelling reached another level of intensity and I am really looking forward to FF XIII-2. Even if FF XIII is getting harsh critics it is well regarded in Japan and most of europe... It was game of the Year in 2009 in Japan and in Germany it won the overall Game of the year 2010 on Animax (fan polls).

On the other hand I have yet to play a single WRPG that I could like even a single bit. Oblivion was one of the worst games this gen for me... The lack of a good main story made it the most boring game I have ever played for more than 30 hours.... and sidequests are mostly repetitive and meaningless ways of stretching the game length...

Dragon Age was the next heavy dissapointment. My wife fell asleep during the first origin story because it was simply not very exciting. And this dialogue system just ruins the pace of the game... everytime a dialogue starts you are interrupted and have to choose an answer without actually knowing what will happen and I always feared that I could miss something important by chosing the wrong dialogue option and I would have to play through the game again... so I always felt stressed and couldn't enjoy the story (that wasn't told in a thrilling way anyway)... and what where the developers thinking about your characters armor covered with blood after fights...simply disgusting.

Mass Effect 2 was the next hyped game that I couldn't enjoy a single bit. It played more like a Shooter than like a RPG and I hated that dialogue system again.

I could go further into detail but i don't want to ruin the games for their fans. I just wanted to point out that many features of WRPGS can also be seen as really awful game design choices.

Well, and even if Pokemon is selling millions of copies... I personally do not regard Pokemon as true JRPG because of the lack of story, character development and moral dilemmas... its more its own genre... monster training simulation or something like that.

So...we haven't actually found out anything yet? What a let-down

Some of the Ruby and Sapphire Pokemon look cool (e.g. the legendaries), but yea I totally agree. I think Gold/Silver was a proper quality sequel, but since then quality has been dropping. I didn't even finidh Diamond. I hope Black/White is better, but man a lot of those pokemon are ugly!

I liked how in Diamond and Pearl you saw older pokemon from older games too. Lame how Black/White doesn't do that even though Patrat really isn't that different from Ratatta.

Anyway my point was for home consoles too.... Is there even a good WRPG for handhelds?? thinking..... I can't think of one.

^^^yeah the legendaries are cool but who knows what hell you have to go through to even get them. You beat 1 Pokemon i think you've beat them all.

Clearly your a JRPG fan, but have you played the older Final Fantasies? FFXIII doesn't light a match compared to Final Fantasy V and VI, and a lot of people love VII and VIII.

You should give Lost Odyssey a try, it's somewhat better then FFXIII, more original, less linear, and just better. I'm going to boot up Infinite Undiscovery and Tales of Vesperia over the summer. I have a lot of JRPG's to catch up on.

Still, just because you're not a fan of WRPG's doesn't mean they suck this gen. The JRPG genre has been on a downward spiral since the SNES and arguably the PS1 days. You jsut don't see as many good JRPG's as you did back then, and NONE to the level of quality Chrono Trigger, FFVI, and Super Mario RPG were at.

This gen, WRPG's are kicking JRPG's butts. FFXIII won GOTY on 1 website, well Mass Effect 2 won it on most websites. Even then FFXIII is one JRPG, what else has there been thats been good and sold well lately? Demon Souls, Lost Odyssey, Tales of Vesperia, Star Ocean, Valkeria Chonicles, those are all 2008/2009 games, they are old. There are a few good ones coming this fall, but not many (Dark Souls, XenoBlade). In the last 2 years the WRPG genre has seen Mass Effect 2, Fallout NV, and Dragon Age 2 to name a few, and this fall were going to see Mass Effect 3 and Elder Scrolls 5.

Meh it's still fun. It's a good system, and it's obviously withstood the test of time. I wouldn't get a handheld for a Pokemon game, but if I had a Nintendo handheld I would get an equivalent handheld.

Speaking of Pokemon, I recently beat the original green and black pixel Pokemon Blue. It was such a great GB game, way ahead of its time.

^^^^i have a Ninty handheld i still wont play Pokemon, it reminds me of the yearly Sports games updates, whats the point